


Crypt Talk

by DDLover



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: "Reunion", Alternate Dialogue, Because Matt and Karen needed to talk things out a lot longer, Expanded Dialogue, F/M, Father Lantom - Mentioned, Frank Castle - Mentioned - Freeform, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson - Mentioned, James Wesley - Mentioned, Karen Page needs a hug, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Missing Scene, Season 3 Episode 11, Season/Series 03, Secrets, Secrets Revealed, Wilson Fisk - Mentioned, church
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 21:00:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16395014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DDLover/pseuds/DDLover
Summary: Karen and Matt had more to say to each other while hiding from Dex in the church basement. An expanded version of the scene in 3x11 where Karen talked about why Fisk came after her.





	Crypt Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Sure, Karen admitted to Wesley's death when Matt asked her why Fisk wanted her dead, but I think it felt out of character for him to not ask for further details about Wesley, like when exactly this happened, what she did, etc. It's also clear from Matt's "No, you were brave" reaction to learning of Karen visiting and provoking Fisk in his penthouse, that he's being reminded of when he visited Fisk in prison following Frank’s escape. Yet I don't think he's ever come clean with Karen or Foggy onscreen about the visit. So I decided to have Matt talk about that.
> 
> Also, I felt that Matt should've reassured Karen she was a good person in spite of what happened. And that there needed to be some more mentions of Frank beyond the flashback to the reveal scene.

Matt and Karen lay silently in the tight space of the coffin, pressed firmly against one another. Matt could hear Karen’s heartbeat pounding rapidly as they heard Dex and Nadeem descend into the crypt, accompanied by about a half-dozen ESU officers. She was clearly nervous, and afraid.

“Damn it!” Karen whispered.

“What?” Matt asked.

“My wrist,” she replied, “I think I cut it when Poindexter was throwing those beads at me.”

“I’ll see if I can bandage it up when we get out of here,” he said in his most assuring voice.

 

* * *

 

Karen had bled enough that she’d left a bloodstain on the concrete of the coffin lid as she and Matt were sealing themselves in.

Maggie spotted the bloodstain well before any of the cops in the room did, and quickly moved to stand in front of it just as Dex and Nadeem shined their flashlights in that direction.

“What about the rectory?” Nadeem asked.

“There’s also a door to the roof,” Maggie replied, pointing up the stairs,  “It’s that way. I can show you.”

* * *

 

 _Thank you, mother_ , Matt thought to himself. He relaxed as he heard the footsteps of Maggie, Dex, Nadeem, and the other cops fading up the stairway.

“Okay, they’re gone,” Matt said.

 _Finally, able to breathe now_ , Karen thought. Matt freed his right arm from underneath Karen’s head, and with both hands pushed up the coffin lid. He was still aching and in pain from the thrashing that Dex had given to him up in the alcove, so it was more difficult than he expected it to be. With a little maneuvering, he was able to move his hands to the side of the lid, and push it over the side.

Karen was breathing frantically, and exhaled a sigh of relief at being able to taste fresh air again, as opposed to the repugnant smell of dust, and just the tiniest bit aroused at being pressed up against Matt for the past few minutes. She slowly stood up and climbed out of the coffin. It took her eyes a few seconds to readjust to the blinding light. Matt got up just behind her, letting out a small groan.

“All right, they’re gone,” Matt said. Karen turned to him as he dragged himself over to the stairs and sat down on the bottom step. “I guess we’ll just wait here until they leave.”

Karen nodded in agreement and leaned back against one of the columns.

There was one thing that was puzzling Matt, though. The whole reason Dex was here was to kill Karen. _“Hello, Karen. It’s nice to see you again.”_ What could she have done to make Fisk angry enough to want her dead? Was it Union Allied? Karen had exposed the racketeering Fisk was doing at Union Allied. But he dismissed that just as quickly as he considered it, as Fisk had left Karen alive, whereas everyone else involved in covering up that scheme (Rance, Daniel Fisher, McClintock, Farnum) had been killed. And there had been no further attempts on Karen that had been directed by Fisk up until just now in the church. As if Fisk had completely forgotten about Karen. When Fisk threatened him in jail, he only mentioned that he’d be going after Matt and Foggy when he got out. He said nothing about Karen. Perhaps he was wrong, and Fisk did remember Karen very well.  Was there something more to this than just Union Allied?

“Why is Fisk onto you?” Matt asked, quietly.

Karen crossed her arms and exhaled, wearily. “I had a plan,” she said. _A plan that’s backfired and just gotten several more people killed,_ she thought bitterly. “I went to go see him.”

“You went to see Fisk?” Matt asked, incredulously. It must have been pretty risky for Karen to be confronting Fisk, being a petite woman talking to a burly man who decapitated Anatoly Ranskahov.

“Yeah, I thought maybe I could provoke him,” Karen said, “Turn his, uh, emotions against him.”

“To what end?” he asked. What Karen was saying sounded an awful lot like he’d done in his last confrontation with Fisk.

Karen sighed. “Make him attack me in front of the FBI.”

“Jesus, Karen….” Matt knew Karen had a bad habit of running towards dangerous situations without a second thought, but this wasn’t like the Westmeyer-Holt contractors who tried to attack her at Elena Cardenas’ place. She’d gone to confront the lion in the lion’s den. _Kinda like I did, twice,_ he thought sadly. He and Karen were way too much alike in that regard. He liked that about her, and he also hated himself for it because he loved her, and a part of him wished he could be the only reckless one between them.

“Yeah,” Karen continued, “Don’t worry, it didn’t work. He caught me off guard. He asked me how long I’d known your secret. He read it in my face.”  No wonder Karen was upset, Matt thought. She’d sworn to secrecy to never tell anyone this secret when he told her, and now she felt like she’d betrayed the very man she had a strong crush on. And that that betrayal had cost the lives of a couple parishioners and Father Lantom. But, Matt realized, it wasn't a betrayal. He hadn't spoken to Karen at all since the _Bulletin_ attack, so he hadn't been able to tell her or Foggy that Fisk had learned he was Daredevil. Part of him now wished that when he'd gone to Karen to ask for her help in tracking down Jasper Evans, that he'd warned her that Fisk knew who he was. Maybe she'd have been more receptive to his request for help then if he'd told her how bad things were.

“You tried to outsmart Fisk,” Matt said, “Provoke him into making a mistake.”

“Okay, fine, all right, I was an idiot, sorry,” Karen said, a little agitated. She was expecting Matt to lecture her the same way that Foggy had. She was caught off guard by his subsequent response.

“No,” he said, “You were brave.”

“Well I went ahead and he took the bait,” she continued.

“What was the bait?”

Karen took a deep breath, bit her lip, and continued. “I told him a secret of my own.” Her breathing was intensifying. Foggy was horrified when she’d told him what she’d done to Wesley. Maybe Matt, being a vigilante, would have a much different reaction. She shook a few times, reliving the memories of that night.  “Do you remember James Wesley? The man who hired us to defend John Healy?” she asked.

Matt’s eyes briefly narrowed in confusion and he nodded, slowly. “Yes I remember him,” he said. He remembered Wesley very well. He'd been Fisk's right hand man up until his untimely death, a few days before Owlsley's death and before Fisk was arrested.

"Do you remember how  he died?" she asked.

"Yes." He knew Wesley had been shot to death in a warehouse. Some of Fisk’s lackeys who’d managed to avoid being arrested when Hoffman flipped on Fisk had told him as much. How could Karen know exactly what had happened to Wesley unless… _shit_ ….

Karen couldn’t hold back the tears that ensued. “I killed him,” she sniffled, “That’s why Fisk sent Poindexter after me.” She took several deep breaths, trying unsuccessfully to calm herself, to no avail. “It was stupid and…and reckless and now…Father Lantom is dead because of…because of…because of me.”

A look of shock swept across Matt’s face, though not as large as the shocked reaction Foggy had given her. What Karen was telling him was impossible, Matt thought. Karen killed a man? And when did this happen? And why didn’t he know about it?  But he could read her heartbeat, and from how fast it was pounding, he knew she was telling the truth.

“When did this happen? When...did he kidnap you? Why did you kill him?” Matt asked, once he was able to get over the shock. Surely he’d have noticed something different about Karen. They were all working pretty closely together as Nelson & Murdock at the time. How could this have slipped past him? This had been right before Ben died, before they'd found Detective Hoffman and gotten him to turn against Fisk.

A lump formed in Karen’s throat as images of Wesley’s dead body, and the gun in her hand, flashed through her head. “It was during that time when you and Foggy were fighting. After he found out the truth about you?” she finally said, “Remember that day when I came over to your apartment? I brought that balloon with the stupid monkey on it?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Matt said. “Tell me everything that happened.”

Karen took a deep breath, and looked down at her hands. “Ben and I went to visit Fisk's mother at the nursing home. Well, truth be told, I—I tricked Ben into going, made him think I was helping him find a care facility for his wife. He had no idea what was going on until we actually spoke to her. But Marlene remembered Ben. Well enough that she was able to provide accurate descriptions of both of us to Wesley,” she said, fighting back more tears.

 _Her guilt about Ben is resurfacing_ , Matt thought. Matt knew she’d never gotten over that and had never forgiven herself for it no matter how many times he and Foggy tried to tell Karen that Ben’s death wasn’t her fault.

"What happened that night?"

“That night, I was on my way home from Josie’s after I found Foggy drunk there,” she continued after a minute, “I’d just gotten off the phone with Ben. Wesley was waiting with his car outside my apartment. I didn’t even know he was there until he grabbed me from behind, and chloroformed me.”

She was drugged, Matt thought. “Jeez …where did he take you?”

“He took me to some warehouse on the Hudson,” Karen replied. “When I woke up, I was sitting in a chair, at this little table. And there was Wesley.”

“What did he want?”

“He put a gun down on the table right in front of me, to—to intimidate me, I guess,” she said. “He rambled a bit about how disappointed he was that their efforts to bribe me into keeping quiet about Union Allied hadn’t worked. Then he told me what he’d learned from Marlene, and then told me he wanted to offer me a job."

"What did he want from you?" Matt asked.

"He wanted me to lie," Karen nodded, "He wanted me to take back everything I'd found out, and tell the world that Fisk was a good man. Of course, you know me. I'd die before I did anything for Fisk, and I told him as much.”

_"I'd rather die first!"_

_“But, you won't be the first to die, Miss Page, no... No, I think Mr. Urich will have that honor, then we'll go to your place of employment to see to Mr. Nelson and Mr. Murdock; after that your friends, family, everyone you ever cared about, and when you have no tears left to shed, then ... then we'll come for you, Miss Page."_  Even almost two and a half years later, she remembered Wesley's death threats, down to the word. How he said all that, without once raising his voice, in that creepy faux-conversational tone.

“And he threatened me, Matt,” she said. “He said he was going to kill you. You. And Foggy, and my family, and anyone else I ever cared about if I didn’t walk back my stance and convince you all that Fisk is a good man. He said I would die knowing I got all of you killed.”

Her heartrate began racing as she began reliving the events all over again. “And then his phone rang. He took his eyes off me to pick it up, and I thought, it was Fisk calling, he was gonna tell Fisk about me and what I was doing. And that’s when I just lunged forward and grabbed the gun. Looked him right in the eye.”

_"Come on.  Do you really think I would put a loaded gun on the table where you could reach it?”_

_"I don't know. Do you really think this is the first time I've shot someone?"_

“And he tried to bluff me…” she gulped “…he tried to convince me it wasn’t loaded, that he’d be an idiot to leave a loaded gun within reach of me. But I knew it was. I know my way around guns. And then I just pulled the trigger.” She scoffed. “Over and over until the magazine ran dry. I killed him, Matt. And then I just ran. I wiped down the table get rid of all my prints, and then I threw the gun in the Hudson.” She heaved a sigh, relieved to have gotten to the end. Somehow it seemed easier to tell this to Matt than it had been to tell this to Foggy. Or even Fisk.

Matt sat there in silence, trying to process this information, while the only sound that filled the air was the sound of Karen sniffling. He was angry. Not at her, but at Wesley for putting Karen in such a situation to begin with, and Fisk for sending Dex to kill her as revenge. As he filtered through this, he also remembered that Karen had been acting differently when he found her in the office later that night. She smelled like a distillery. Her heart was pounding like a jackrabbit, and she was incredibly jittery and frightened. At the time, he’d thought she was just stressed out between investigating Fisk, Elena getting killed, and Matt and Foggy fighting.  “So that’s why you were in the office in the middle of the night when I came by,” Matt realized. “I know that you had been drinking heavily and that you were acting like someone was out to get you. I just thought you were just very stressed out in general by everything that was going on. I'm sorry, Karen.”

Karen sniffled and wiped her nose.

“That’s what you meant that night when you told me that ‘the world fell apart.’ Is that right?”

“Yeah, it was,” she said after a moment of silence.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Matt asked. "Karen, I would've listened to you."

Karen wiped some snot off her face with her finger. “Well you uh, you were always…” She wiped a tear off her face with another finger. “…uh, treated me like I was innocent. It was nice. That was nice that you thought of me like that. I didn’t want you to think I was a monster or anything.”

Matt contemplated in silence.

“And when I said you and Foggy were the only good things I still had in my life, I meant it,” she added. “I’ve been very lonely ever since I left Vermont. And I didn’t want to lose you or be judged by you for it.”

“You’re not a bad person,” Matt said. “Karen, you’re not. You did the right thing.”

Karen exhaled. “I keep saying that in my head, that killing him was the right  thing to do, but there’s a part of me that keeps thinking I could’ve done something different." She didn't like the look that Matt was giving her. "You really don't think I'm a bad person, am I?"

"No, I don't," he said, "I don't."

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because Karen, you went through something terrible. And I didn't know."

Karen sniffled. "When I got the gun, I could’ve called the cops, I could’ve run.”

“You were afraid for your life,” Matt replied, “It was self-defense. The way you put it, Wesley was threatening imminent physical harm to your loved ones. Not to mention Fisk had tried to kill you twice for finding out things he didn't want others to know about, so in your eyes, Wesley's threats were credible and you had no reason to believe he was bluffing. And besides, you said he drugged you. So I'd say you weren't even in the right mental state to be thinking of murdering him. All you were just doing, from what you've told me, is you were acting in the interest of self-preservation by any means necessary.” He paused. "And besides, Fisk owned the cops. And still does. You couldn't have gone to the precinct. They would've made sure you didn't walk out alive. They'd have hanged you just like that guard tried to do the first time. Or like that Russian that Blake and Hoffman killed in the interrogation room on the day Blake was shot.”

“Seven times,” she said, her voice breaking.

"What?" Matt asked. She'd shot Wesley seven times? Once would have been plenty, twice would be pushing the self-defense argument, but seven times in all?

The tears continued rolling down her cheeks. “I shot him seven times...because I wanted him dead. And I enjoyed it. I felt he deserved more. I'd have shot him several more times if I hadn't run out of bullets.”

“You did what you had to do, Karen,” Matt got up and walked over to her. He held her uninjured hand in a most reassuring way. “You said Wesley threatened to have me and Foggy killed. It’s how Fisk gets people to do his bidding for him. You heard what Jasper Evans told us, Fisk threatened his son. The guy who makes my suits, who made the one that Poindexter is wearing? Fisk threatened his girlfriend. You’re not a bad person because of that. You protected us. And you still feel bad about what you did after the fact."

Karen looked into his sightless eyes. Somehow that didn't sit right with her.

"I killed him, Matt, in cold blood," she said, "How can you be so okay with that? You've said it about Frank Castle, killing is wrong. That's what you kept saying about him during his trial."

Matt felt a slap in the face as he recalled the argument they'd had in his apartment while they were preparing for his cross examination of Tepper, the medical examiner.

"Gosh," he said. "Karen, I..." He stammered as he tried to collect his thoughts. "I was there when Frank killed Grotto. He chained me up to a rooftop. We had a conversation. He felt completely justified in what he was doing, killing everyone associated with those who killed his family. He called me a half-measure, Karen. He actually tried to get me to shoot Grotto to prove a point of some kind."

"Holy shit..." she said.

"Is this why you got all defensive of Frank?" he asked, not wanting to dwell on the past. "Because of what you did to Wesley?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I was just desperate to believe that Frank was still a good person, deep down. Like, if he's still a good person in spite of what he's done, then I'm one too."

"You are a good person, Karen," Matt putt his free hand around her other shoulder. "You truly are, in spite of what you've done."

"It was cold-blooded murder, Matt," she said, "Surely that means something to you."

"Well I'm in no position to judge you for that. I’m shocked by what you’re telling me. I had no idea what you were going through. But you're still the strong and determined person I imagined you are. You've kept up your crusade to fix the injustices created by Fisk in spite of everything. And you’ve been carrying the weight of this on your shoulders all this time by yourself without anyone else helping you. That's real heroic of you to push on like that. You’re a brave person, for what you did. And visiting Fisk, you were brave for doing that too. Reckless and dangerous, yes, but...brave nonetheless.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that anymore,” Karen crossed her arms. “You know, I had nightmares for weeks after the shooting. Sometimes, I imagined Fisk appearing in my bedroom. He’d talk to me about what it means to take a life, that it would get easier to do the more times I did it. Other times, I’d be there in that warehouse, reliving the event over and over as if on a continuous loop. And sometimes, I just kept imagining him choking Ben with his bare hands and screaming for him to stop.”

“That’s what makes you a good person,” Matt replied, “You only killed Wesley because you were driven into a corner. That you took a little satisfaction in killing him in the heat of the moment is a perfectly normal thing. You were probably on an adrenaline high. It was Wesley’s own fault he got shot, Karen. And it’s not your fault what happened here tonight either. Am I mad at what Benjamin Poindexter has done? Yes. Am I pissed that Father Lantom is dead? Yes. But you had no way of knowing what Fisk would do after you left. These deaths are on Fisk, not on you.”

That was very reassuring, Karen thought. She hadn't expected Matt to take this surprisingly well and show such strong sympathy for her. She'd expected Matt would do quite the opposite. But she still didn't think she deserved to have such strong sympathy. Fisk wouldn’t have known about her being Wesley’s killer if she hadn’t visited him and gloated it in his face. Besides, Father Lantom was now dead because of it.

“Can I ask you a question, Matt?” Karen asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, sure.”

“You say I was brave in deciding to visit Fisk in his penthouse,” she said. "You didn't seem surprised at all."

Matt grimaced. “What are you getting at?”

“I dunno, I was thinking that you would be…uh, more angry at me, or something, for deliberately putting myself in danger, going to see Fisk all by myself,” she said, “Foggy was pretty livid when he found me and interrupted me. And you haven't exactly reacted well when I've gone off and done risky things on my own."

"Karen, I-"

"Like when Fisk's guys attacked me outside Elena's building? Or that time when I broke into Frank's house?”

“I know that you probably don't want to hear this, but I’m in no position to judge you for that either,” Matt said, putting his hands on her shoulders, “Confronting Fisk in the place where he sleeps? If I were in your shoes, Karen, that’s exactly what I would’ve done. In fact, it’s something I have already done before.”

Karen couldn’t help but smile a bit. “You're sounding an awful lot like Foggy. That's pretty much what he said to me.”

Matt laughed a bit. “Am I? I guess he picked it up from me.” He took a deep breath. “I haven't even told Foggy this, but...I think it's my fault the FBI were onto you like that."

"How?"

Matt bit his lower lip. "Remember the day Reyes was killed and Frank escaped? I visited Fisk in prison, after I left you and Foggy with Tower. I had a strong suspicion he was responsible for arranging Frank’s escape.”

That wasn’t exactly much of a shocker, Karen thought. Even as a one-man army, she knew it was common sense to assume that Frank couldn’t have escaped a high security prison without help, but just who was providing that help had been a mystery. “And what did you find?"

”My suspicions were right," Matt shrugged, “Fisk admitted as much to me, that with Frank on the loose, it gets rid of his potential competitors."

"How did you get him to--"

"I provoked him. Used his emotions against him. Much like you did the other night."

Karen mentally face-palmed. "Is that how he found out about your secrets?"

"No," Matt said, "I don't think so. But I told him that I'd be willing to do anything to keep him from seeing Vanessa ever again. He grabbed me, he choked me, and threatened me, Karen. He also threatened Foggy. He promised he would come after us all when he got out. I tried my best to convince him to leave Foggy alone, but to no avail. And he did. He told me he was already making good on that promise the next time I visited that prison.”

Karen stared at him. “The next time?” she asked, quietly.

“Yeah,” Matt shrugged. He sounded almost detached and drained as he said, “I should’ve known. I was a complete idiot for not thinking Fisk would anticipate me coming back. And it’s my fault Fisk knows my other identity.”

“Well how did he find out?” she now sounded concerned, but non-judgmental. Matt had made stupid mistakes, just as bad as hers.

“OK, I never told you the details of how I found out that Fisk paid Jasper Evans to shank him."

"Does this have something to do with why you stole Foggy's Bar card?"

Matt nodded.  _Oh right. Foggy probably told her about that._ "Yeah, it was a stupid move on my part, I know. I went to the prison, to talk to Michael Kemp, you remember Michael right?"

Karen nodded.

“Well I talked to Michael. I told him to give me access to Vic Jusufi, he's in charge of an Albanian prison gang.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I tried to push him to talk…but he punched me, The guard insisted I had to get checked out by the nurse for liability purposes, and he took me to an exam room.”

Karen paused. “That doesn’t sound like proper prison protocol.” She didn’t know much about prisons, but even a lawyer like Matt should not have been back there at all.

“Well, the nurse came in a half hour later,” Matt answered, “There was a camera in the room. And it suddenly activated. A second later, the nurse took out this syringe and he injected a syringe into my arm…I think Fisk wanted me drugged so that his inmates would have an easy time shanking me.”

He felt Karen’s breath hitch. Matt had come so close to getting drugged and stabbed to death in a prison. She couldn’t bear to think about how close Matt had come to dying twice since then.

“I tried to get out, but the door was locked. Seconds later, the telephone in the room rang. I picked it up, and Fisk was on the other end.”

“Fisk called you himself?” she asked, a tone of disbelief.

“Yes," Matt nodded. "He told me that his men were going to kill me for threatening Vanessa. Then he hung up. Then his guards unlocked the door and let some inmates out of their cells to ambush me."

“Holy shit…” Karen whispered, horrified. 

Matt chuckled bitterly. “It took some effort, but I managed to take out the first wave. But then I got attacked by a pair of guards working for FIsk. I took them out. That's when I found myself in the Albanians' wing. He told me what I needed to know about Fisk’s shanking, and then he had one of his men steal a guard’s uniform to escort me out of the prison.” He paused. "He's the one who told me about Jasper Evans."

He could hear Karen's heartrate increasing. It sounded to her like something out of a horror flick. "I managed to make it back to the taxicab that took me to the prison before I passed out."

Karen was still very much rendered speechless by Matt's tale.

"The sedatives wore off a few hours later. As I woke up, I found that while I had been inside the prison, Fisk had replaced my driver with one of his own. The guy drove me into the Hudson in an attempt to drown me, but I freed myself. And that’s what happened before I approached you."

Almost immediately, Karen wrapped her arms tightly around Matt to hug him. It was comforting to feel him reciprocate the hug in return. She was relieved to know that she hadn't betrayed Matt.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly into his ear, “I’m sorry you went through all that.”

“Yeah, I am too,” he said, quietly pulling out of the hug. He could tell from Karen’s heartbeat that something else was on her mind.

“Before we went into the coffin," she said, "You said you had Fisk in his penthouse and gave up your one shot to come over here to save me from Poindexter. What did you mean by that?”

“I was going to kill him. Your turn to judge me.”

Karen shook her head. She couldn’t judge Matt. He’d saved her life twice, and as a two-time killer, she couldn’t really condemn him for having homicidal thoughts either, especially about Fisk.

“No. No I’m not,” she said, waving her hand dismissively, “I get it. Trust me. Just makes me…makes me sad for you.”

“It has to be done, Karen. I should’ve done it when he killed Mrs. Cardenas.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve considered it?” she asked, concerned. "Killing Fisk, that is?"

“Yeah,” Matt shrugged. “When he killed her, I went out to the warehouse where he used to conduct his business with the intention of beating him to a pulp. But he killed Elena for that very reason. I didn't know until I got there and found Nobu waiting for me.  The guy who led the Hand group that kidnapped you last year. Fisk knew I'd react strongly to Elena dying, and he'd been having problems with Nobu, so he tricked the two of us into taking one another out.  Nobu cut me up pretty badly, and Fisk gave me a pretty nasty beating before I was able to escape. I barely made it back home alive, and that's how Foggy found out the truth about me. I still have the scars from that night if you want to see them.”

 _Shit. That's all my fault_. Karen couldn't help but think that maybe she was responsible for that too. When they were watching Fisk give his condolences on the TV at Josie's, she'd expressed a desire to see Fisk dead. If only she'd known what Matt was capable of at the time. She couldn't help but recount the 'car accident' lie Matt and Foggy had spun to her to explain Matt's injuries. "...So when you and Foggy were claiming you'd been in a 'car accident' with a Japanese car, that was what happened?" she asked.

Matt nodded solemnly.

“Okay, Matt, you have to listen to me here,” Karen said in a low whisper as they took a seat on the bottom step. “Okay listen to me.” She took a deep breath. She'd never told him about Fagan Corners either. “Okay, look, I never told you about why I left Vermont, right? Why I left home?” Matt stared at her.

"Why did you leave?"

"I killed my brother," she said, the words escaping out her mouth even as she tried not to say them.

That stunned Matt. So Karen had killed two people, not just one. All he could ask was, "What happened?" He knew it was probably insensitive to ask Karen to divulge more painful secrets, but since he didn't know how much time they'd have until Dex came back, Karen might as well divulge it to him, since it might be something Fisk could use against her.

Karen sighed. "My family in Vermont, we uh, owned this little diner. It was just me, my mom, my dad, and my brother Kevin."

Matt seemed to be holding his breath, as if reminding her that he existed would make her cease talking.

“My mom died when I was 17,” she continued, “Leaving me, Dad, and Kevin to run the place on our own. It was very stressful, trying to run a little establishment with just three employees. I wanted to get away from it all. Then I met a guy named Todd Neiman. He turned out to be a  drug dealer. It didn't take him too long to get me hooked on heroin.” she felt her hands trembling. “…and eventually I started selling drugs with him at college frat parties. One day, my dad bought this $5,000 grill for the diner, one I knew we couldn't afford. And Kevin was insisting I go to Georgetown.  We had a big fight at dinner. I said some horrible things to Kevin, at my Dad. And then I went off with Todd to get high.”

Matt sat there, contemplating.

“Kevin decided that he needed to take drastic measures to isolate me from Todd, so he burned down his trailer. Then he attacked Todd in front of me.” She swallowed. "He began beating Kevin with a tire iron he kept in his truck. And I—I c-couldn’t just stand there and let my brother die. Todd kept a gun in his glovebox, so I grabbed it and I shot him. I put Kevin in our stationwagon and I drove off, trying to get him to a hospital."

“I was driving like a maniac,” she said. Her eyes were burning. "I was high. And I was drunk and I was angry and I shouldn’t have been driving and I...lost control. I flipped the car about three or four times. When I woke up, Kevin was dead." She fought back tears. "His neck was broken."

Matt had no words to say. What Karen had been through sounded terrible.

"Were you ever charged?"

Karen shook her head. "The Sheriff of our town was a friend of my Dad's. He falsified the report, made it seem like Kevin was driving the car by himself and I was never there. But...Dad disowned me. Told me I wasn't welcome in Fagan Corners anymore."

She took a deep breath, relieved to have finished this story.

"Does Fisk know about this?" Matt asked.

Karen swallowed a lump of bile, thinking about her conversation with Felix Manning. "I think so, yes."

"How did you find out that?"

Karen bit her lip. "In my investigation, I found Fisk had purchased the hotel through a dummy company called Vancorp. And he was using a fixer named Felix Manning to launder his money into Vancorp through this offshore firm called Red Lion National Bank." She sighed. "When I went to bank to see him, he threatened me, Matt. Told me addicts destroy their own families." She took another deep breath. "Of course, I never got a chance to think about it more, because when I was leaving the bank, the FBI scooped me up, took me to your apartment, and Nadeem started asking me questions about you."

"Fisk clearly has good  resources," Matt replied. "Though I have to ask: if he knows all that, why hasn't he gone public with it?"

"I don't think he has any reason to, now that Ellison's fired me," Karen replied.

His eyes widened. Karen had been fired? How had that happened? “He fired you? Why?”

Karen bit her lip. "Well, he was pissed about the _Bulletin_ being attacked, for obvious reasons and...” She sighed. “He thought knowing the real Daredevil's identity would help things. And I refused to tell him that.”

“He fired you for knowing my identity?”

“He fired me for refusing to tell him it,” she corrected him quietly.

"That's not right," Matt replied.

"Yeah, well tell that to him next time I see him."

Matt edged closer to her, his forehead creased. “I’m sorry, Karen.”

“It's not your fault. It's his.”

“You could’ve told him something," he said, "You could've just said that you knew that wasn't the real Daredevil because that wasn't his voice."

"I don't think that would've helped," Karen said. She shuddered. "Like I said, Ellison was mad. And thinking about it, I'm not even sure that I'd still have my job even if I had told him. And even so, I'd have a hard time then trying to convince him to not publish your name."

"Well, he's wrong to fire you. You've kept this secretly fairly tight, so he I don't think he technically has any proof you were withholding information." It was an inappropriate place for Matt to consider a wrongful termination lawsuit, but he needed to work his legal mind. “Sounds like he just asked you for something and you didn't give him a satisfactory answer owing to his anger. Even if he had proof, I could argue to him that you were only acting in the interest of protecting an individual with the resources needed to find the attacker."

They sat there in silence, the only sound in the room being the distant noise of the cops upstairs.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Matt suddenly broke the silence. "Why did you tell me that story about what happened to your brother? And how that affected you?"

“My point is that no matter what I've done the last 14 years,” she said, “there is no atoning for the fact I killed my brother. And there’s no way you come back from killing Fisk.” She’d killed two people and couldn’t forgive herself for either of them. The least she could do was hope that Matt wouldn’t stain his soul with Fisk’s blood. It would be against everything he’d stood for. He’d be no better than Frank, Karen thought bitterly.

  
“What if it is the way back for me?” Matt asked. “I can’t let Fisk go.”

Karen shook her head, and sounded on the verge of pleading as she continued. “Killing anyone, even Fisk... it will change everything that you…that you feel about yourself.”

They sat there on the steps in silence as Matt tried to take in what Karen was getting at. Deep down, he knew Karen was right, but he also knew that Fisk had to be taken out of the equation permanently. He'd hurt way too many innocent people and everything that had happened since he was locked up had proven that he couldn't be stopped by a jail cell.

“You know your wrist is still bleeding, right?” Matt said, breaking the silence after several minutes. "I should probably bandage you up before it gets any worse."


End file.
